Just after the midnight of May 21 to May 22, 2026 the 5000th daily planet diff was generated.

• So I finally modified the boundary of Palo, Leyte, where Barangay Barayong is part of it. I was first putting a note to let anyone edit or find the boundary source from the local government, until I decided to do it myself. Not official, by the way. :-)

Tonight I finished mapping every building, every address in Farley Iowa. There are still buildings and farms outside the city limits but that’s a future project.

While preparing this article, I wanted to export the coordinate data of the battlefield map that I created in Altilunium LocationPad to GitHub Gist.

Then, I realized that the exported file format was actually just plain JSON, not proper GeoJSON. That’s why GitHub Gist couldn’t render it as an interactive map.

So, in this version (26.5.20), Altilunium LocationPad now properly exports and imports coordinate data in the proper GeoJSON format.

Image 1 : The exported GeoJSON can now be properly rendered by GitHub Gist.

Hi bestie, I love you so much for being a strong girl. You are strong You are beautiful You are dligent You are intelligent You are smart You are loved Continue being good and never stop being you.

Hi, I am Venetis, a computer science student from Thessaloniki. This summer I’ll be working on closures.osm.ch as part of Google Summer of Code 2026, mentored by Simon Poole and David Haberthür.

closures.osm.ch is a platform where road authorities submit temporary road closures so that routers can avoid them. The data is there, but right now it doesn’t actually affect routing. That’s what I’m fixing.

My work this summer comes down to three things:

• Adding a Valhalla-powered routing endpoint that genuinely avoids closed roads
• Building a sidecar service that feeds active closures into Valhalla’s traffic tile system
• Improving the DATEX II/CIFS importer that brings closure data in from external sources

I’ll be posting updates here at each milestone. The code is on GitHub if you want to follow along.

Coding starts May 25. Looking forward to it.

For the first time, Humanitarian Data Exchange (HDX), a widely used platform for sharing humanitarian data, is releasing disaster-specific OSM datasets. This has allowed OSM data to be downloaded over 440 times in response to recent disasters in Madagascar and Mozambique including within the disaster affected countries themselves.

This initiative kicked off in early 2026 and has already resulted in two regularly updated and focused HDX-OSM datasets:

• Mozambique Floods, January 2026
• Madagascar, Tropical Cyclone Gezani, February 2026

Although the same data is directly accessible on OSM, being on HDX ensures:

… See full entry

Summary

Issue #1 when first using offline OpenStreetMap navigation apps for Android, such as OsmAnd, Comaps, and Organic Maps: the size of the map to be downloaded. In many places, it’s the entire country or nothing. And that often amounts to over 100 MB, with some cases exceeding 500 or 600 MB. Why is that?

Personal experience: the rise of smartphones in the Global South

During the summer of 2013, I coordinated an OSM mapping HOT project in northern and northeastern Haiti with others. At that time, the go-to tool for field data collection was the small, rugged, and energy-efficient Garmin Etrex series devices, though they required a fairly lengthy editing process on a computer. I had had my first Android smartphone for a few months by then, and as I recall, OSMtracker already existed, perhaps Vespucci as well (though I didn’t discover it until later), and OsmAnd was in its early stages. However, the app ecosystem wasn’t yet mature enough to replace the eTrex. At the end of the mission, I saw some Haitian participants start to get their first smartphones.

A few months later that same year, during another mapping mission in Mongolia, I had a meeting with officials from the Asian Development Bank whom I was trying to convince of all the benefits of OpenStreetMap. At one point, I used the emergence of these OSM mobile apps as an argument, noting that they would soon allow anyone to easily access and contribute to OSM data, given that smartphones would soon be in everyone’s hands. I didn’t feel like I was making wild guesses: cell phones were already everywhere, and it seemed quite logical that Android smartphones—whose affordable models were just starting to hit the market—would also be successful and boost both contributions to and use of OSM.

… See full entry

30x30 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_by_30) is a global initiative proposed in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework to conserve 30% of the area represented by Earth’s land, water and oceans. This goal has been adopted by many countries and non-governmental organizations, including The Nature Conservancy and the United States in the Biden administration’s Executive Order 14008 (Section 216) later a key element in the launch of the America the Beautiful initiative in 2022.

OpenStreetMap has adopted International Union for Conservation of Nature standards for describing protected areas, including parks, nature reserves, and other lands. As a free, open-source, community-driven and collaborative geographic feature database, OpenStreetMap is a useful tool for assessing progress towards this goal. Continual updates, world-wide coverage, native-language support and a robust open data working group governance structure; OSM is perhaps the best “live” tracker towards accomplishing this goal.

Over the last few weeks I’ve improved the way that paths and tracks are shown on map.atownsend.org.uk in both the raster and vector versions. The aims were:

1. Improve clarity, so that their visibility in e.g. nondescript woodland was better
2. Improve consistency, so that the display of them on vector and raster looked similar to each other, and the “visual weight” of each class broadly matched when looked at together on a map.
3. Reduce confusion so that two different things were not shown in similar ways.
4. Show “good quality” paths and tracks (e.g. paved and compacted gravel surfaces) differently to other ones to help answer the “will it be muddy” question.

… See full entry

Contributing commercial vehicle GPS traces from Kerala — a routing approach

I’ve been working on a method to convert commercial vehicle telematics data into useful GPX traces for OSM contribution in Kerala.

The problem

Telematics data is segment-based — each record has a start coordinate, end coordinate, timestamp and distance, but no continuous GPS track in between. Uploading these directly produces straight lines which aren’t useful for mapping.

The solution

I set up a local OSRM instance using the Kerala road extract from Geofabrik, then route-matched each segment to the actual road network. This produces GPX traces with thousands of road-following points instead of straight lines.

Results

From two months of data covering Thrissur, Irinjalakuda, Chalakudy, Kodungallur and surrounding areas:

• 141 road-snapped segments uploaded as GPX traces
• 19 high-priority segments flagged as possible unmapped roads
• These will be cross-checked against aerial imagery in JOSM

Next steps

Reviewing the unmapped road candidates in JOSM against Bing aerial imagery. More vehicle data from the same region will be processed and contributed regularly.

If anyone in the Kerala OSM community has experience with similar data or wants to collaborate on reviewing unmapped road candidates, feel free to reach out.

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Tools used: Python, OSRM (self-hosted), gpxpy

First time writing a diary so friend I converted to mapping can find me :D

– Portuguese below

A SPECIAL KEYNOTE ON THE REVISION OF MOZAMBIQUE’S ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO HIGHLIGHT THE IMPORTANCE OF OPENSTREETMAP AND OPEN DATA

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On May 13, 2026, a roundtable discussion was held on the implementation strategy for Mozambique’s national environmental policy, which is currently undergoing a major revision. The event was hosted by the Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the Pedagogical University of Maputo (FCTA UP-Maputo), in partnership with the Brazilian company IVIDES DATA®.

 

At the invitation of the organizers, Dr. Raquel Dezidério Souto (IVIDES DATA® and UFRJ, Brazil) delivered a special keynote titled “Development & Conservation” (translated from Portuguese), followed by a discussion on the recent Mozambique’s environmental strategy. A copy of the presentation can be found in Portuguese at https://zenodo.org/records/20149423 (*). 

 

… See full entry

Yesterday I cleaned up some map data by removing unnecessary email and unrelated details from several objects. I am learning and trying to follow proper OpenStreetMap mapping guidelines.

[This is a work in progress, IANAL and this isn’t legal advice]

Lots of data is Switzerland is produced by the cantonal GIS offices (while it might seem to originate from swisstopo it often doesn’t), for example the hiking path/trail data is all cantonal and we can only utilise such data, even when using the data distributed by swisstopo, if the cantonal terms are compatible with our license.

In the following I’m using open in a hand wavy, “close enough” fashion here, and not applying the strict definition as per the open defintion. Class A refers to the federal ordinance definition for generally accessible geo data¹.

To set the scene: Switzerland does not have sui generis database rights regulation or anything similar, nor does it adhere to a sweat of the brow copyright doctrine. Between non-government entities any (minimal) protection available is based on contract and fair competition law. The big exception is geo data where the federal government has written in to law rights that are essentially a “data copyright light” and many of the cantons have followed suit.² There is no relevant case law that I know of and how any of this would work out in an actual dispute is, well, open.

… See full entry

My name is Chukwuemeka Emmanuel Nwosu, a 300-level student of the Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Port Harcourt. This diary documents my Industrial Training (I.T.) programme as I undergo it.

After careful thought, deliberation, and counsel from my mentor and my brother, I decided to carry out my I.T. programme at the Mapathon Center of the Unique Mappers Team, University of Port Harcourt. I officially resumed on Tuesday, the 11th of May 2026.

On my first day at the Mapathon Center, I had the pleasure of meeting several interesting individuals who, like me, were present for their Industrial Training. Among them were Matel, who serves as our I.T. representative, and Wisdom, both students from the Department of Geology, Rivers State University, and two of my coursemates from the Department of Geography and Environmental Management: Rania and Obasi Emmanuel. I also learned of a few other trainees I had yet to meet in person.

Notably, I was able to complete a part of the week’s assigned task on this very first day. The task required me to create a map of the University of Port Harcourt, situating it within the context of Rivers State and Nigeria as a whole, while clearly indicating the locations of Abuja Park and Delta Park within the university.

On the quiet early morning of 18 July 2018, pilgrims from the Mega Arafah Hajj Guidance Group (KBIH Mega Arafah) gathered at the Mega Arafah office near Gedung Sate.

Their first stop was West Java Regional Police headquarters (Mapolda Jabar Gedebage), where pilgrims from across Bandung had assembled.

… See full entry

I made a small JOSM plugin called Fillet Tools (FilletTools.jar).

It adds an interactive mode for rounding corners of ways, similar to a fillet tool in CAD software. The motivation is simple: in the real-world, many objects are not designed with sharp corners. Roads, sidewalks, residential landuse areas, sports fields, running tracks, and other planned infrastructure often have smooth, consistent curves. Mapping these curves by hand usually means placing several nodes one by one, which is slow and often inconsistent. Fillet Tools is an attempt to make this specific editing task easier in JOSM.

You can find the project in the GitLab repository, and download the test JAR from the v0.1.2 release.

How it works:

• enable the Fillet Tools mode from the toolbar or by pressing v;
• move the mouse over a way or inside a closed polygon;
• small handles appear near available corners;
• drag a handle to preview the radius;
• release the mouse button to apply the rounded corner.

… See full entry

Tornadoes

Tornadoes are very complex natural disasters involving many shapes and sizes. For a tornado to be on the ground, Look for rotating dust on the ground. The funnel does ## NOT have to touch the ground to be considered a tornado.

Notable Tornadoes

The most notable tornado is the May 22, 2011 Joplin EF-5tornado because it was the deadliest tornado in over 70 years. Not even 3 days after, one of the strongest and most notable oklahoma tornadoes happened, May 24, 2011, El Reno - Piedmont EF-5

Hiking has become a popular choice for many outdoor enthusiasts. Especially since the spread of COVID in the early 2020s, hiking has gained widespread popularity. Even people who previously rarely or never went hiking began to see it as a healthy and enjoyable activity during the pandemic.

In response to this continuing trend, an idea emerged: what if we at Kaart invited the OSM contributor community in Bandung to hold a joint activity? Besides serving as a recreational gathering, the event could also become an opportunity to learn about the tagging system related to hiking trails. We first shared this idea in a limited group in Bandung, but it was enthusiastically welcomed by two YouthMappersgroups: UPI YouthMappers and UNJ YouthMappers. Despite the long distance from Jakarta, UNJ YouthMappers showed particularly strong enthusiasm.

The UNJ and UPI YouthMappers community event was successfully organized and ran very well. The program took place smoothly in a series of activities beginning with the arrival of participants from Jakarta on the evening of April 17 and ending with everyone’s departure on the morning of April 19. The number of participants nearly reached the expected target. A total of 17 participants attended, consisting of 2 representatives from Kaart, 10 members from UNJ YouthMappers, and 5 members from UPI YouthMappers.

… See full entry